Contentions

There is something about conservatives using the word “freedom” that drives the left insane. Maybe because progressives like to see themselves as champions of the people, fighting against the system, rather than what they actually are: statists, attempting to impose their beliefs on individuals through government power.

At the Huffington Post, AFL-CIO boss Richard Trumka reimagines the concept of “freedom” today in a column that is just as Orwellian as you would think (h/t Washington Examiner):

I do believe that freedom isn’t free — but today the corporate and political right wing is trying to cheapen this truly American value. They’ve been cynically using the word “freedom” to rally the American public against its own best interests.

She’s referring, I guess, to the freedom to go without health care when you’re sick.

In its otherwise positive decision, the Supreme Court gave states the “freedom” to deny Medicaid coverage to their poorest residents — even though the federal government would pick up the tab.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker received the National Rifle Association’s “Defender of Freedom” award recently. I guess they meant Gov. Walker is defending teachers’ freedom from joining with coworkers to bargain fairly about things like class size. …

Let’s call this right-wing “freedom” catch phrase what it really is: a grossly political strategy to dupe the public, which holds the word “freedom” as something sacred.

This Independence Day, I say let’s go back to a truer use of the word “freedom.” Let’s start with President Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. I would add the freedom to bargain collectively.

The “freedom to go without health care when we’re sick” isn’t the issue, unless Trumka is arguing that the state should force every sick person in the country to get medical attention. We all have the freedom to decide whether or not to see a doctor when we are sick, just like we should all have the freedom to decide not to pay for health care (insurance) when we are well. We have the freedom to move if we disagree with our state’s decision to not participate in Medicare expansion. And we also have the freedom to elect a new state governor who will participate in it, or lobby the current governor to do it, if that’s our preference.

We should all have the freedom to decide whether or not to pay monthly dues to a union, instead of having the money automatically pulled from our paychecks. Trumka opposes “teachers’ freedom from joining with coworkers to bargain” — in other words, he thinks teachers should be forced to join with coworkers to bargain. Shouldn’t someone who professes to care about teachers support their freedom to make their own choices regarding their paychecks and their workplaces?

Trumka seems to grasp that this statist mentality is unpopular with the public, and that labor’s messaging strategy in Wisconsin was a failure. That’s why he’s so adamant about trying to reframe his positions as “pro-freedom,” as illogical as it sounds. The conservative arguments are working, and the left has very little ammunition to fight back.